They also make a werewolf attack puppet! Doug said they’re planning to replace it with a new model, and it looks like the single one they have left in stock is over 40% off. Edit: looks like someone snapped it up!

Here are the details:

The puppet comes with a harness and is light weight (around 12 lbs.) so it can be worn comfortably for long periods of time. The harness is disguised by a 2X black hoodie and a fake arm allows you to control the puppet while giving the illusion that your arm has been pinned to your chest by the hungry werewolf.

It was a pleasure to meet Doug and see him perform with “Sally”. I look forward to seeing the new werewolf he and VFX create.

A. Quinton — Jun. 1st 2017

Fresh off last week’s Star Wars werewolf / Shistavanen reprise, Rick Baker is back at it with the werewolf creature effects. Yesterday he posted this 2008 photo of himself as a werewolf, about to get strung up by the ladies he’s menacing (his wife and daughters). This scene was remarkable enough that it served as their family Christmas card that year, but let’s be honest – they’re probably doing stuff like this every weekend.

A. Quinton — May. 25th 2017

The Star Wars werewolf connection hinges entirely on special effects legend Rick Baker deciding to use some of his off-the-shelf creature masks during re-shoots of the Episode IV cantina scene in 1977. Among those masks was a werewolf Baker had created on his own in 1973. As with seemingly everyone else in that cantina, the werewolf extra gained an official name – Lak Sivrak – and an elaborate backstory full of intrigue, romance, tragedy, sacrifice, most of which was told through Star Wars comic books.

Then in 2012, Disney consigned everything about the character except his name and species to Legends, the phantom zone for all retroactively non-canonical Star Wars artifacts. And that was it for poor Lak until earlier this week, when Baker set about re-casting a new mask from that original 1973 mold.

He posted four photos of his work – which I’ve embedded below – on his Instagram feed. The quality of his design and work is astonishing, and consider that he did all of this in three days.

A post shared by Rick Baker (@therickbaker) on May 24, 2017 at 10:38pm PDT

The hashtags and reminiscences in Baker’s comments make this seem like an observance of the film’s release anniversary – Star Wars hit theatres 40 years ago today –but it could also be a coincidence. Baker seems like the kind of person who’d resurrect a 43-year-old mold and then and pour, pull, paint, hair and trim a new mask on a lark – simply because he loves doing this sort of thing (and happens to be really, really, really fucking good at it).

The level of detail on this thing is incredible, from the bloodwork to the details on the box. Check out the Sugarlicious photo gallery for more, including some close-ups.

Jacob’s family runs Little Brown Fairy Cake, who took home a Bronze in the same competition with the excellent Penguin cake pictured below. Despite looking like one of the least-tasty DC villains, it’s all edible, even the monocle. I told Jacob this in confidence but I think I’m a big enough person to admit it to the world, regardless of what it might do to my werewolf fan credibility: the David Kessler cake is impressive, but I kind of prefer the Penguin cake. What can I say? I like the prospect of eating Danny DeVito’s head, and of course, I didn’t have to travel to London to see (or eat) the best werewolf cake ever – it was right here in my kitchen in 2012.

A. Quinton — Mar. 15th 2017

I tend to reserve “catchin’ up on my sites” for the end of the day, but any time I spot a new Monster Legacy post – even when it’s not about werewolf creature effects – it immediately gets my full attention. This oneis about a werewolf, though: Hogwarts professor and Harry Potter fan favourite Remus Lupin.

Lupin’s werewolf form in the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was controversial. Scrawny, sparsely-furred and almost rat-like, his transformed state in the film was neither what author J.K. Rowling described in the book (essentially a big wolf with some human traits) nor what most werewolf fans wanted to see (a shaggy, well-built human-wolf hybrid). This was a deliberate decision on the part of creature designer Wayne Barlowe, who channelled Rowling’s concept of “lycanthropy as sickness” into

a gangly, emaciated creature with distorted proportions… a hunched back, long and thin limbs, and a sickly, almost skeletal head.

The filmmakers were so committed to the concept that they built werewolf suits with stilts and limb extensions to use on set – practical effects that turned out to be anything but. Almost all of the clumsy suit shots were later replaced with CG effects that, while easier to work with, pushed the already-unconventional werewolf Lupin right down into the uncanny valley. A shame – I personally like the look of the practical suits, which seem to have more werewolf and less Gollum in the design.

Take a look at the full post on Monster Legacy for concept images, set photos, conceptual and practical details (including the reason why CG werewolf Lupin was put through an exercise regimen), and a reminder that Rowling wrote perhaps the most uninspiring depiction of a werewolf transformation ever.

A. Quinton — Mar. 9th 2017

Portland-area fans of NBC’s Grimm – which airs its final episodes this month – will want to gas up their cars, pack a lunch and gather up some rainy day cash. According to Portland Monthly, “a 40,000-square-foot warehouse stuffed with more than 120 episodes’ worth of Grimm props and paraphernalia will open its doors to the public” this weekend.

The EstateSales.net listing has dozens of photos of the items that will be available. Much of it seems to be clothing and antiques, but I bet discerning fans will find plenty of props related to the show’s menagerie of werewolves, were-foxes, were-beavers, were-vultures and other Wesen.

Conspicuously absent from the listing is an address for the event. That will be announced tomorrow night:

The address for this sale in Portland, OR 97210 will be available after 7:00 PM on Friday, March 10th, 2017.

The sale will run from 9 to 5 on Saturday the 11th and Sunday the 12th, and 10 to 4 on Monday the 13th. Due to warehouse safety concerns (and possible rogue hexenbiest on the premises), no children under the age of 10 will be admitted.

“The challenge was to suggest those classic creatures, without really copying them,” explained [lead mummy builder] Shane Mahan, “because we didn’t have permission or the license to use those specific images. So we could do a ‘Gillman’, for example, but it couldn’t look too much like the Creature from the Black Lagoon. It was frustrating for us at first, because, of course, we wanted to do the original designs! But we couldn’t. We could only suggest those designs.”

This isn’t a Monster Legacy level essay, but there’s some neat stuff on display, including Stan Winston’s original sketch of the Wolfman. Yep, you can thank him for those super wide-set eyes.

A. Quinton — Apr. 12th 2016

Yesterday creature effects legend Rick Baker tweeted what he referred to as an “unfinished sketch” of a werewolf rendered in a style reminiscent of his 2010 Wolfman lycanthropes. Is this Larry Talbot posing with his own tombstone? I like dapper snarly werewolves and this fellow wrecked my damn shop.

Then today Rick followed the sketch up with a self-effacing note expressing surprise at the positive response it got. He “almost didn’t post it because it is so un dynamic”, he wrote.

The person who’s taken home two (2) Academy Awards for his Werewolf Work is sandbagging his own artwork online. The dude responsible for some of the most iconic werewolves of the past 35 years is surprised that fans like me want more. MORE! Your modesty becomes you, Rick, but come on – I could write an entire blog post about that gnarly badass clawed hand alone! RICK. You don’t elongate a palm like that by accident!

Rick’s tweets are embedded below. Follow him on Twitter at @TheRickBaker just in case he posts more of these “unfinished sketches” and you want to get your brain’s werewolf zone obliterated directly by the man himself.

1 of the unfinished sketches I have been working on. Having fun using a pencil and paper. Haven't done that in ages pic.twitter.com/VW3xvpO78D

A. Quinton — Mar. 24th 2016

One of my favourite things about “online” is discovering new things through a series of unexpected causal connections. I recently went through one of these “one thing leads to the next” adventures. One tweet from a friend turned into multiple hours of enjoyment involving South Africa, werewolves, music and many things with ALL-CAPS names. Join me, won’t you?

My journey started when @Somnilux tweeted at me a promo trailer for South African HORRORFEST 2015. The trailer depicts a woman watching a mysterious VHS tape, sort of like “The Ring”, but with more immediate (and better) consequences: she turns into a werewolf. This gave me two cool werewolf-things to think about and research:

1. Check out South African HORRORFEST. I have never been (and probably won’t ever get a chance to go) to South Africa, but I know twopeople who live there, who might have attended the event during its 11-year run, and/or who might be going to (or submitting something) to the 2016 incarnation. I am convinced that every horror convention is a treasure trove of unique werewolf artifacts, so this bears further research.

2. Find out who did the werewolf transformation makeup work. Who’s responsible, and have they done more werewolf work? A little digging reveals that Clinton Smith & Cosmesis did the creature effects for Flamedrop Productions as part of the promo for HORRORFEST 2009. Their web site is a content-light placeholder at the moment, so not much else to find there.

Then South African pal Lew tweets that the woman in the video is the singer for TERMINATRYX, and that an expanded version of the promo was used as the music video for their song “Virus”. That puts another item on my list.

3. Watch TERMINATRYX’s “Virus” music video. TERMINATRYX is a “female-fronted Alternative band with Metal, Industrial and sometimes Gothic shades” – a descriptor that encompasses many of my musical tastes. The video for “Virus” does indeed expand on the HORRORFEST promo video, depicting the continuation of singer Sonja Ruppersberg’s transformation and the consequences it has on the people she meets. The werewolf design was great. Also, I really liked the song, and with all the running I’m doing lately I could use some new music in my library, so…

3b. Listen to more of TERMINATRYX’s music. Not yet in progress, but I’ll probably start with the self-titled 2011 album that “Virus” came from.

But wait, there’s more! The “Virus” video description text mentions another, longer, final version – a short film representing the conclusion of the project that started with the HORRORFEST promo, which means I need to

4. Watch MARKED, the 8-minute short film with “more special make-up FX”. I have not yet done this, but technology let me download the video for offline consumption while I’m on the train later today. I have high hopes, based on what I saw in the previous two versions.

Before I do anything else, though I have to

5. Finish this post so you too can check all this great stuff out. Done. And as I write this, guess who’s just tweeted another link at me. Is there such a thing as too much werewolf content?